I'm at Limmud. It's the best (Jewish) fun you can have with your clothes on.

Tales From the London Underground Customer Service Heartland

So the marketing speaks very highly of it, so I decide to get an Oystercard. Apparently, there's no fumbling for change, and you can pay 2003 rates all year. Who writes this guff? I can't find my photocard, so I go and get a crap photo taken in Kilburne tube, fill out my card, queue for like ever, get to the front, get my new photocard, ask for a Daily Tikcets Oystercard, and get told "dey told sell dem. Read the poster."

Now the poster says buy it here, but I know more than to argue with an LT CSR. So I take my ugly new photocard, and go off and hole myself up in the British Library (you wouldn't believe what I don't currently know about optoelectronics. Clients, eh?).

Get home, tidy my house, find my old photocard with attractive photo, and go online. Also, I made more chilli and carrot and dill soup. We have a lot of vegetables. It's the worst website I've ever seen: looks cute and navigatable at first glance, but not actually copywritten, so you only understand it if you spent two months on the marketing brief. If you're just a punter, it doesn't make sense. Gah.

So I eventually I find the - stupid popup - bit that says:
"Get an Oyster card now and with Pre Pay, you’ll make great savings on single journeys from 4th January 2004. That’s because prices are set at 2003 prices for the whole of 2004. Take a look at the table below to see how much you can save."

I start buying it - fill out a stupid registration form, give them my photcard number... and get to the payment but and it's NOT SECURE. Unbelievable. I'm on IE6 like the rest of the office-stylee world, and I'm not prepared to do it, all kinds of security-scary pop-ups.

By now it's well past 8pm, so I can't call them. 8am, I call 0845 330 9876, where they're on-hold message says (a) we're so buys phone back tomorrow, and (b) Daily Tickets are not available here, yet. Eventually, I get through to a Kylie, and I check that they are available - yeah, they just didn't update the message. Oh, fine.

I check that I can get 2003 rates all year by just putting £10 on my card now. "Oh no," says Kylie, after checking with a colleague, "just for the money you put on." She can't verify anything, and tells me to call the Oyster Helpdesk on 0845 330 9876. "That's the number I just called you on," I said. Oh. So she gave me another number, that was a fax number, and then I called back and chose the "Help option" and spoke to someone who said I could get the 2003 prices all year. Which is actually not true - if a single ticket is £2 now, and likely to go up in 2004, you pay £1.60 on your Oystercard. It probably is good value if you can bear buying one.

So after a couple of goes this Kylie got the switch card machine to work - halleluyah - and the card's in the post. No, I can't buy daily travelcards till March 2004. No, no buses either. No, she says, it's not a great system. Wonder who it's outsourced too? I'm not sitting by my letterbox anytime soon.

You know I have that Excel thing going on? Well, so it turns out, does Jason.

[via Plasticbag]

Last night, I'm walking down to Kilburn tube, on my way to meet J for a movie, and I'm wearing my current favourite outfit (black velvet trousers, black leather long coat, pink cordoroy seventies-stylee loose cap, pink cordoroy stilletto boots), and as I walk down the High Road, a youngish guy listening to loud R&B leans out of his window and shouts "smokin' outfit. The hat, the boots, fabulous."

No, really.

I don't usually do this. No, really, I don't usually do this, but I took this quiz, yeah, and it was so right:

You are 38% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Finally saw Spirited Away. And cried.

You probably don't remember, but round about this time last year, I went to A&D's party, and literally ran into Glenn, chief Raelian UK, although we spent all our time talking about hair care products, and it was only when the cloning story broke a couple of weeks later, that I realised it was him. What a wasted opportunity - we talked at length about Potion9, and never got to talk about "The Raelian Revolution, the world's largest UFO related, non-profit organisation - over 60,000 members in 90 countries - working towards the first embassy to welcome people from space... sweeping the world with the most politically incorrect and fearlessly individualistic philosophy of non-conformism ". But then, he probably doesn't like to discuss work on the weekends.

Went to A&D's party at the weekend, had a slightly more child-friendly flavour - though still with the drumming - and I met all manner of interesting folk ranging from a surf-dude to a woman setting up an art studio party venue.

Of course I'm sure I'm not the first person to comment that all the world-domination stress has clearly (fnah fnah) got to Saddam's skin. I mean, while he was huddled away in a bunker with $750,000, he didn't keep up his personal care regime, did he? He looks like the after pictures in a bizarre before-and-after fashio setup. If I was going into hiding, I'd be sure to take both my hairstylist and my manicurist. Possibly, even a facialist.

Man, even Google is moving some tech/R&D to India.

Getting into that New York Gotham thing - tiny t-shirts - in readiness for my NY trip.

Jonathan Lethem and Fortress of Solitude. The Observer likes it.

Anyone, er, read persian? I'm getting a lot of hits from this persian blog, and I have no idea what they are saying about me. Probably, "she could do with losing a little weight," although, less so in a middle-eastern context.

It's About Time
The TIME magazine 100 most/important people of the century.

Jonathan Ross gets a British Comedy Award for Friday Night With. About bloody time.

And do you know, he lives down the road from G's parents by the heath extension, and the interior of his house is painted a far-too-vibrant pink. For a moment, walking past, I thought I was in Vanessa Feltz territory.

Getting a cab home from Camden during the week, the cabbie told me that Ken Livingston lives in Cricklewood, in a street opposite the Galtymore. Which means, he probably uses the number 16 bus. Which means he really ought to have replied to my letter. Perhaps I should invite him round for Friday night dinner, give him a bit of local colour?

Saw/heard Nicky Hornby tonight - the last of the Orange Word - what's great about him is honesty. It's like reading a book that's like sitting in the pub with a really good mate. That's what I aspire to. Then onto X's work drinks, which included Cherie and a host of other well-dressed people. We finished the evening with a meal at Cafe Delancey in Camden. I don't always pack this much in an evening, honest.

Timothy McSweeny's Internet Tendency and The Believer. Must get subscriptions. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After a crazy slanging match with a Sony senior customer service miner (because, let's face it, being a CSR is the twenty-first century version of working down the mines - commoditised, badly paid, and herded into pens), who basically said I'd imagined the whole wrong-postcode-no-delivery scenario, even though I have documentary evidence, I got home from a great evening to find it delivered when it's not allegedly arriving till tomorrow.

Slightly surreal moment - I'm half-watching Jonathan Sacks on TV talking earnestly about the "big questions" in that superfluously earnest voice he has. He can't imagine anything worse than rule by religious rulers. He just said that in Ancient Israel there were kings with power and prophets with no power, but who remembers the names of the kings? He for one doesn't, but the words of the prophets go on forever. But that's not true, because I remember kings David and Saul, and a host of others. You're just wrong, Jonathan.

Ruben Gonzalez - of Buena Vista Social Club fame - died.

 
So, with UPS, you can track your delivery online right down the the exact moment it goes out to you, but not if Sony take your order wrong and try and deliver it to the wrong f***ing postcode. Gah. It's a week I've been waiting for my "shinning fabric neoprene cover" and it's still out there, in the ether, trying to deliver itself to NW3.

See, the web's wonderful blah blah blah, you can get anything, but it's the old fashioned infrastructure stuff that makes or breaks it. It's great that I can get 47 flavours of chilli vodka, but if I'm not home to take delivery, and have to drive out to Harrow to collect it with my passport, it's not that convenient, is it?

For Whom The Bell Tolls
I'm so happy the M6 toll road's opened this morning. I think we don't pay enough in taxes, and here's a great way to shore up the UK's dying infrastrucuture.

I used to drive up to Manchester a lot, but about three years, I - naively - went up on a Friday afternoon as a surprise, left home at 2pm, thought I'd get there at 5pm, ended up getting there are midnight. Warned off, forever.

However, I can't help wondering, looking at the marketing communication, whether the M6 toll is a "bitter pill to swallow". And if "the new M6 Toll is the most exciting development in British transport history for many years", it's only because some transport geek ought to get out more. Sure, it might help congestion, but 27 miles isn't going to change the country, and it changes public services. Do you have more money to go on the "privatised" road? Great.

I think we should all do it. I think there should be a section of the Kilburn High Road we charge people to drive along, and make a separate traffic jam while people queue to pay, fumbling for their pound coins. Or alternatively, we could pay a vast privatised, once-public sector technology company vast sums of money to fail at collecting the toll. Sounds familiar?

My neighbours appear to be setting of a commercial amount of fireworks. I don't know if they got a post-Guy Fawkes job lot, or if they are dealing with their pyromaniac tendencies, but I feel like I'm on Kilburn's front line. Gimme a break.

Also, to go with my new laptop, I ordered a neoprene carry case (at least, I think it's neprene, it's described on the website as a shinning fabric, and I've never seen fabric shin up anywhere), direct from Sony. Dead efficient, they send me email where I can track its journey from Brussels. Thing is, it's been in Brussels since Thursday. Before online tracking, they could have lied to me.

I'm lying in bed, with my new laptop, listening to the BBC Scotland Blog Day (which is kinda fun, but ultimately, there's not a lot of verite you can add to reading out blogs - it's mostly the sound of typing, and frankly, I prefer the sound of silence), and I'm thinking I must go to the gym soon.

Must go to the gym soon.

See, I am. Busy day - Limmud meeting, tea in Hampstead, out tonight, and got another busy week starting tomorrow.

I love my MTV. I love my new PC.

That Travesty (aka film) That's Allegedly About Love, Actually [includes spoilers]
I am incandescent with rage about the overselling of that mediocre piece of less-than-fluff that masquerades as the ultimate romantic comedy.

Let's preface this with saying that I did at least make N some fantastic organic carrot and dill soup, with zaatar-covered cumin and coriander flat-bread. Which at least fortifed us for the walk up to the Tricycle to have our senses flagrantly played with by someone who ought to know better.

So you know the DVD the Evening Standard gave away with the little "character portraits" where you thought, 'well, they seem a little one-dimensional, but hey, it's just an intro'? They are all one-dimensional. And the power of love is that we're not supposed to notice that. And it's kinda, well, a little racist/smug: the black people are all soul divas or down-wiv-it, because, as we all know, black people, dey can dance. And the working class people all have loads of children and eff and blind like there's no tomorrow. Because we all know working class people don't know about contraceptives. And they all - bizzarely - live in the same street and send their kids to the same school. Because London's a village, and that's the power of love.

It's like being in a parallel universe where the characters are all ironically banging their head against something all the time, and you have stop yourself from doing same. A parallel world where Hugh Grant is slightly Blair-esque (yeah, and like we'd really elect a single Prime Minister), and Billy Bob is somewhere on the Clinton-Bush continuum, and the faux-cabinet look like pale imitations of the real thing, so there's a Claire Short-esque woman, and a Boateng-esque man. And in this parallel universe, everyone lives in Ikea room sets. And people who've professed never to notice each other, have one snog and ride off into the distance.

It's self-satisfied, annoyingly smug, surprisingly badly written (I was cringing for the 11 year old kid who had to talk like a 32 year old man, and the sandwich delivery bloke who had to deliver the most grotestquely un-flirty lines) journey into the mind of a man with too much money and too many well-connected friends who didn't have the guts to tell him the truth, who really ought to know better.

This film - which outrageously opens referencing 9/11 as part of the global luurve message - does have a point: it's a message from the universe to tell us to make Richard Curtis go back into his box. You've done your best work, Rick, stand aside and let the people who understand character, human frailty, real love and good dialogue do their thang. You, it ain't.

But Arrived
I spoke too soon, clearly. It's 8.58 and it's here. Gosh.

Late
So I paid £40 for a 9am delivery (which means between 7am and 9am) and it's 8.57 and it's not here. Bugger. Nothing works, anymore.

Dabs.com, I'm not happy with them
[rant]
So I placed my order for my shiny new Sony TR1MP at 8am this morning, and the website skipped over delivery options, and I wanted it for tomorrow morning. No problem, they're all "e" so I emailed at 8am. And 10am. And 11am. And 12. And 1.30. At 2.30, when I figured it need to be despatched PDQ, I called the business line number, who couldn't talk to me because I was "personal" and then spoke to the receptionist who said they were an e-commerce business and didn't speak to people. I emailed the customer service department manager. Again. He hasn't replied. I cancelled my order, and spoke to someone very nice at Empire Direct, and it'll be here at 9am tomorrow.
[/rant]

About Last Night
Went to Shish with M (Willesden one, not the trendy Shoreditch one), after my aerobics class was cancelled due to lack of interest. I started a dance class, but it only took my heart rate to 110, and I craved that 150-160 burn, so I ducked out and did dinner.

My second favourite local place after La Brocca (NW6) who, sadly, don't have a web prescence.

Nearly Brun?
Discussing a bad noir movie last night, I asked whether it was like the shade card for tights (you know, Nearly Black). Nearly Noir?

Identity Politics
Turns out I'm a vegiquarian - who knew?

I feel a Fish People Tapes moment coming on.

Oh! Those Americans...
(to be said in an oh-those-russians voice)

Check out this map of increasing obesity in the States. And where the US starts, the UK is bound to follow... I've just revised my lunch plans.

Download the Fun
Digital Paparazzi are the guys who took our photos Saturday.

This, You Won't Believe...
So I emailed an invitation to keynote a very prestigious technology show to the IT Director of a huge London borough. A week ago. Today, I chase up, and one of her many assistants tells me "oh, the person who prints off her emails has been sick for a week, so she won't have read it yet."

That's the public sector for you. State of the world, blah blah blah...

The Morning After the Night Before
Well, two mornings. Whatever.

Saturday night, I was in Manchester to celebrate a very special anniversary for my parents, surprise-style.

So we (me, bro, sis and assorted other halves) had been teasing that they were going to Harry Ramsdens, and they were all dressed up in their party clothes at 7pm, and we went outside, and they nearly fell over: a 120 inch Lincoln Town Car (mit blue lights). They loved it. We loved it. It's hard to turn corners in a stretch limo, so we went the long route into town, enjoying the smoked-glass one-sidedness of seeing all.

My Dad had realised we were going to the Lowry Hotel when we turned into Deansgate, but it was still great. When we got out of the limo, there were loads of "press" photographers, but they were actually there for a function, but still took our photos. Fame, eh?

Three couples, very old friends of my parents, were waiting in the private area of the bar I'd organised, and they all looked fabulous and suitably sparkly (even the men), and my Mum and Dad were deeply surprised and loving it. Then we made our way into the private dining room, where the table had been set (as per my request) with red orchids and scattered flowers on the tables, and little red hearts on the table decorations. It looked fab.

We took lots of photos, had a beautiful meal (from a specially chosen menu with all their favourites), toasted my parents, and had a couple of informal speeches.

How's this for weird: my Dad went out to powder his nose, and came back and said "can you beleive it? XXXX is having dinner here, it's his (second) wife's birthday!". XXXX was my parents best man at their wedding in 19XX. The world works in mysterious ways...

The evening was only slightly marred by a fire alarm that went off at 11.15 when our evening was drawing to a close, but it was a very special celebration of wonderful parents, and family and friends.